In 1933, Dix was fired from his professorial position at the Dresden Academy and his work declared “degenerate” and a detriment to Germany’s ability to defend itself. He retreated to the southern German countryside and started drawing landscapes in pen and ink that were stylistically connected to the drawings of Lucas Cranach and other German Renaissance artists. Many avant-garde artists followed a similar pattern under the National Socialists, retreating to rural areas and changing their subject matter and style, a tactic later called “inner emigration.”